Photos: Apple's secretive race for new Silicon Valley office space

After two decades of being stuck inside 1 Infinite Loop, Apple began building an expansive new Campus 2 now called Apple Park. In parallel, it leased a third large development known as AC3. But the company isn't finished. It's expanding in other directions and has already planned out another major campus in Silicon Valley with a capacity larger than the Spaceship. Here's a look.

Apple's three largest NorCal campus facilities

Apple's overlooked offices in plain sight

In addition to the three major Cupertino-area campus sites Apple is now (or will soon be) populating, the company also makes use of an array of surrounding office locations.

Over a decade ago, Steve Jobs addressed the Cupertino city council with the initial expansion plans back in 2006 for a site that would later become part of Apple Park. He noted at the time that "we've rented every scrap of building we could find in Cupertino," and that Apple was already operating "in 30 other buildings now," outside of the six buildings in its 1 Infinite Loop campus.

Some of Apple's scattered office buildings in Cupertino

Despite starting an employee migration into the massive Apple Park site and as AC3 approaches completion, the company continues to use 1 Infinite Loop (below) to unite its various Internet services, including Siri, Maps, iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple News and parts of iTunes and Apple Music, among other functions.

There are also a series of other surrounding office sites that bear official Apple signage. These include a dozen nearby buildings along De Anza Boulevard and another dozen buildings (some of which Apple has occupied since the late 70s) along Bandley Drive and Valley Green, accompanied by a separate fitness center, parking garage and the free-standing Caffe Mac Alves private cafeteria (below) that Apple constructed in 2012, pioneering the modern, glass-walled design of Apple Park.

There are also more than another dozen other Apple office buildings along Stevens Creek Boulevard that stretch past the Vallco Shopping Mall to the Lawrence Expressway (past the boundaries of the map above).

Apple's Stevens Creek 8 is a visible landmark along freeway 280

Apple occupies old and new buildings along Vallco Parkway at Tantau Avenue

Tantau 9 is part of the Phase 2 construction of Apple Park

Apple's office buildings continue all the way down to another dozen buildings located along or near Tantau Avenue (including Apple's new $108 million Apple Park retail store and Visitor Center, below top), which lie just across the street from the main Apple Park site.

Within the Bay Area, Apple also operates a data center in Fremont, does something mysterious with a chip fab it acquired in San Jose, and reportedly works to develop new microLED display panels, test health-related devices and evaluate automotive technologies from various other unmarked, secret locations referred to as "high security buildings." These are often shrouded in layers of obfuscated ownership to avoid corporate espionage or drawing any attention to the company's various unannounced projects and initiatives.

Offices around the U.S. and the Americas campus

Outside of Northern California, Apple also has significant offices in and around Los Angeles, California (including the acquired headquarters of its Beats subsidiary in Culver City) as well as new studio production space. The company also uses other offices scattered around the U.S., including a GPU design center in Melbourne, Florida.

Apple also operates a major 39-acre campus called the Americas Operations Center in Austin, Texas (below). Construction there began in 2012, before the company even broke ground at Apple Park. It has since been expanded.

Further, in addition to its several large iCloud data centers (that mostly house racks of servers, maintained by relatively few actual workers) located in Maiden, North Carolina; Reno, Nevada; Prineville, Oregon and Newark, California, Apple also operates a green, $2 billion global command iCloud operations site for its data centers in Mesa, Arizona, on the site of its scuttled effort to fabricate sapphire panels with GT Advanced Technologies.

Another American campus (or two?)

Earlier this year Apple announced that it "expects to invest over $30 billion in capital expenditures in the U.S. over the next five years and create over 20,000 new jobs through hiring at existing campuses and opening a new one," indicating that it has plans to expand outside of its primary operations facility campuses in Austin and Cupertino by 2022.

That sparked a comparison to Amazon's nationwide competition for a locating its new HQ2 headquarters, but it could also be a reference to the massive campus Apple has already lined the rights to build in northern San Jose, about 10 miles (16km, or a 15-20 minute drive) northeast of Apple Park.

That 85 acres of land, located next to the San Jose airport, was stealthily assembled from a series of purchases much like the original site for Apple Park. It includes the former headquarters of chip maker Atmel Corp (pictured below). The entity that owned the land, Ellis Partners, filed the paperwork to rename its Amtel Way cul-de-sac to the more Apple-friendly "Orchard Place."

Located next to the San Jose airport, Apple has virtually all the land you can see left of the highway. It's already permitted for massive development.

The majority of that property is currently vacant land directly adjacent to San Jose's light rail system, which connects it to Apple's nearby chip fab to the north, or south to the airport and downtown San Jose, where it has started hosting its annual Worldwide Developer Conference since moving it there from San Francisco last summer.

Two years ago, Apple received approval to build 4.15 million square feet of office space on the site--the potential for new R&D offices nearly 1.5 times that of the recently completed Spaceship at Apple Park--over the next fifteen years.

Um, if SJ announced all this over a decade ago and most is in plain sight, just how ‘secretive’ is it?

When did Steve Jobs announce this over a decade ago? The only thing I remember him announcing was plans for Apple Park (Apple Campus 2) in 2011 and that Apple would still need the Infinite Loop campus and the new Apple Park Campus.

Why? CA real estate is crazy expensive. The cost of housing in CA in insane. There have been several stories about people leaving CA for cheaper & better places to live (I knew people who did it way back in the 80s). In this age of Slack, Skype, discord, and all the other online meeting & collaboration tools, why build a big office with a high concentration of people in a very expensive place?

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

Why? CA real estate is crazy expensive. The cost of housing in CA in insane. There have been several stories about people leaving CA for cheaper & better places to live (I knew people who did it way back in the 80s). In this age of Slack, Skype, discord, and all the other online meeting & collaboration tools, why build a big office with a high concentration of people in a very expensive place?

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

Why? Land price is a fixed cost which is 1-time investment. Silicon Valley has workforce availability and diversity that other areas don't have together with transportation systems. It's no brainer that tech companies choose to build offices here. Where can you find hundreds of hi tech workers? Don't tell me about NC or Atlanta...LOL...good luck to find any software engineer there. Apple don't just hire high school graduates to design iPhone...Please...

Um, if SJ announced all this over a decade ago and most is in plain sight, just how ‘secretive’ is it?

When did Steve Jobs announce this over a decade ago? The only thing I remember him announcing was plans for Apple Park (Apple Campus 2) in 2011 and that Apple would still need the Infinite Loop campus and the new Apple Park Campus.

Why? CA real estate is crazy expensive. The cost of housing in CA in insane. There have been several stories about people leaving CA for cheaper & better places to live (I knew people who did it way back in the 80s). In this age of Slack, Skype, discord, and all the other online meeting & collaboration tools, why build a big office with a high concentration of people in a very expensive place?

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

Companies operate where talent is. People making the most noise about "leaving California" are often retired investors going to live in a big house somewhere cheap. They don't contribute toward the workforce.

If it were more efficient and productive to have teams of people working at their homes in cheap places to live, successful companies would be doing that.

Instead, Apple (and lots of other companies) set up offices in places where there is already activity going on, and work to recruit competing talent away to join their company. That's why Apple has offices in Canada next to Blackberry, etc.

Why? CA real estate is crazy expensive. The cost of housing in CA in insane. There have been several stories about people leaving CA for cheaper & better places to live (I knew people who did it way back in the 80s). In this age of Slack, Skype, discord, and all the other online meeting & collaboration tools, why build a big office with a high concentration of people in a very expensive place?

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

After two decades of being stuck inside 1 Infinite Loop, Apple began building an expansive new Campus 2 now called Apple Park. In parallel, it leased a third large development known as AC3. But the company isn't finished. It's expanding in other directions and has already planned out another major campus in Silicon Valley with a capacity larger than the Spaceship.

Why? CA real estate is crazy expensive. The cost of housing in CA in insane. There have been several stories about people leaving CA for cheaper & better places to live (I knew people who did it way back in the 80s). In this age of Slack, Skype, discord, and all the other online meeting & collaboration tools, why build a big office with a high concentration of people in a very expensive place?

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

Apple's profits are fine. As a shareholder...that makes me vomit when I hear that. It's like a shareholder knows how to run a company better than the company, especially a company like Apple.

Why? CA real estate is crazy expensive. The cost of housing in CA in insane. There have been several stories about people leaving CA for cheaper & better places to live (I knew people who did it way back in the 80s). In this age of Slack, Skype, discord, and all the other online meeting & collaboration tools, why build a big office with a high concentration of people in a very expensive place?

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

California is an open liberal minded state. The state is welcoming to diversity, same sex couples, environment, basically one of the more friendly states to diversity, and strict environmental rules. I live in NC however the state is still majority governed by ultra conservative christian republicans, who are not friendly towards same sex couples, transgender, they really don’t care about the environment, sure taxes are lower for business, housing is almost as expensive, just property tax is low. Plus NC and other southern states have zero protections for employees. If a company especially a tech company wants the best talent they need to stay in Cali, other west coast or northeast states. Apple is making billions in profits. Personally I think they give to much back to the share holder. Most shareholders are clueless about what’s best for the company, I am a share holder and sure dividends are. nice, but i’d rather see Apple continue to broaden their green environment, offer even better benefits to their employees, raise employee pay.

Why? CA real estate is crazy expensive. The cost of housing in CA in insane. There have been several stories about people leaving CA for cheaper & better places to live (I knew people who did it way back in the 80s). In this age of Slack, Skype, discord, and all the other online meeting & collaboration tools, why build a big office with a high concentration of people in a very expensive place?

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

Considering the size of the markets served, and the location of the supply chain, a West Coast base of operations make obvious sense.

Still, Apple wants to diversify its operations, hence why Apple is rumored to be choosing a location in the NorthEast for a support facility. I would argue it is a good location for additional AI/ML/AR R&D as well.

Why? CA real estate is crazy expensive. The cost of housing in CA in insane. There have been several stories about people leaving CA for cheaper & better places to live (I knew people who did it way back in the 80s). In this age of Slack, Skype, discord, and all the other online meeting & collaboration tools, why build a big office with a high concentration of people in a very expensive place?

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

California is an open liberal minded state. The state is welcoming to diversity, same sex couples, environment, basically one of the more friendly states to diversity, and strict environmental rules. I live in NC however the state is still majority governed by ultra conservative christian republicans, who are not friendly towards same sex couples, transgender, they really don’t care about the environment, sure taxes are lower for business, housing is almost as expensive, just property tax is low. Plus NC and other southern states have zero protections for employees. If a company especially a tech company wants the best talent they need to stay in Cali, other west coast or northeast states. Apple is making billions in profits. Personally I think they give to much back to the share holder. Most shareholders are clueless about what’s best for the company, I am a share holder and sure dividends are. nice, but i’d rather see Apple continue to broaden their green environment, offer even better benefits to their employees, raise employee pay.

I think you are lumping all of California into the "Bay Area" mindset, and lumping all of North Carolina into the "small, hick town" category. They are as a whole, neither.If you consider North carolina to be void of high tech, you just need to do some research, and if you think housing anywhere in NC is as expensive as Silicon Valley you are sorely mistaken.

As a shareholder, that almost borders on poor use of Apple's money. High real estate cost + high housing costs = higher salaries = less profit. Put a campus somewhere nice, but cheaper to live like NC or Atlanta.

... or Pittsburgh or Cincinnati or Detroit or St. Louis or Minneapolis or Nashville. There are plenty of big cities with solid engineering schools to supply some talent that would welcome Apple's investment instead of wringing hands about more congestion. Footnote to tech world: You can buy a nice four-bedroom suburban house in real America for $200K.

Companies operate where talent is. People making the most noise about "leaving California" are often retired investors going to live in a big house somewhere cheap. They don't contribute toward the workforce.

If it were more efficient and productive to have teams of people working at their homes in cheap places to live, successful companies would be doing that.

Instead, Apple (and lots of other companies) set up offices in places where there is already activity going on, and work to recruit competing talent away to join their company. That's why Apple has offices in Canada next to Blackberry, etc.

Lots of truth to this, Daniel, but 1) the labor market is more flexible than that, i.e., people will follow quality jobs to a non-traditional locale, and 2) though it is clearly not yet as concentrated a supply, there are a lot of talented folks in the rest of the country, and many of them would be happy to home in on an Apple campus in their half of the country — especially one that didn't come with the liabilities of California (at least Silicon Valley) life.

macxpress said:Apple's profits are fine. As a shareholder...that makes me vomit when I hear that. It's like a shareholder knows how to run a company better than the company, especially a company like Apple.

Apple's profits are fine, but it is surely any shareholder's – i.e., part owner of the company's – right to believe his or her investment isn't being handled properly. Such a shareholder may be completely wrong, of course....